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Sunday, September 4, 2016

Are you ready for Fall? Well I am certainly getting in the seasonal mood so check out my DYI Turquoise Velvet Pumpkins!

I have to admit.....I truly don't have much in the way of Fall decor simply because I do sooooo much decorating at Christmas that I choose to focus on that holiday. I sold most of the fall decor many years ago so that I could have extra money for Christmas decor and only kept a few heirloom pieces. This year I am feeling a bit more "Fall-y" but didn't want to spend any money on decor so I thought if I can make things with stuff I have then I will decorate a little bit more for fall.

As luck would have it, I have a ton of stuff from previous projects in the craft/sewing room and since I do deem myself as pretty crafty I started looking for fall crafting ideas. Obviously the main decor item for Fall is the pumpkin so that is what I choose for this years fall house decor up-do.

Since you you can find so many tutorials across the web for making velvet pumpkins {or fabric pumpkins in general}, it didn't seem necessary to write another one in great detail with step by step pictures. Instead I'll just suggest you google or pinterest that yourself, you can search right from my website, and as you will see there are dozens. Here is my tutorial version and I'm sharing with you with the finished product pictures of course!

Here is my method of a plush, fabric pumpkin!

1. Start with fabric of choice, I've used regular quilters fabric and velvet. Cut a circle from your fabric using a dinner plate or go bigger depending on the size you want.

2. Some of the more expensive velvet pumpkins have plastic pellets inside. This is not my choice because I want FREE, I used raw elbow macaroni and rice and I even used spaghetti noddles all broken up for the big one {since I ran out of the other options}. This is to weight the pumpkin down so that it won't constantly be falling over. Another alternative weight that you can use is dry beans.

3. After you have your circle cut, gather the Edges–Thread a large needle with upholstery or heavy duty thread and run a basting stitch around the entire edge of your cloth circle.

5. Fill the your pumpkin about 1/3 full with rice, beans, or whatever your choose for weight.

6. Stuff the pumpkin the rest of the way with fiber fill.

7. Close the hole by running another basting stitch around the entire edge of the top of your pumpkin.

8. Hot glue your stem of choice, I used the "beanseeds" from our "bean {AKA Catalpa} tree" to create a realistic pumpkin stem on my velvet pumpkin. I would prefer to have used a real pumpkin stem but obviously I don't have that option so this worked great for me =) You can use items like sticks, wine corks, dowel rods, etc.

OPTIONAL: To get a more realistic looking pumpkin you can flip the pumpkin upside down after step #7 and pull the needle through. Cinch tight, and go up and down through the middle of the pumpkin a few more times. This creates a depression in the stem area of the pumpkin, allowing the ‘shoulders’ of the pumpkin to be full and voluptuous.